Trusting you makes them happy

The number one reason employees are
happy is they trust their leaders (Lamb & McKee).

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Surprisingly, less than half of employees have trust and confidence in their senior managers (Baldoni, Lead Your Boss).

Six Creative Ways to Build Trust

Declare what you want rather than what you don’t want. Saying what you don’t want stops things. Saying what you do want instills confidence to starts things.

Trust is based not only on openness but on keeping a confidence. What you don’t say builds trust.

Honesty plus ability builds trust. An honest electrician isn’t competent to renovate a master bathroom. He may be perfectly honest. However, don’t trust him with your toilet.

Explain organizational performance. For example, don’t hide financial successes in order to keep people hungry.

It’s hard trusting the captain when the ship’s adrift. Stand on the bow with telescope in hand and bravely call out the course. Do your people know where you are going?

Let people know how they fit in and what their work means. Say something like, “When you do “X” it makes a difference.” Explain the positive difference others make.

Leader as Trust Builder

Employee satisfaction is a complex mix of many factors. Research demonstrates the number one satisfaction-factor is they trust their leaders. Ask yourself the hard question, “Are my employees satisfied?” Perhaps the harder question is, “What am I intentionally doing to build trust?”

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(The central premise of this post comes from research done by Lawrence Lamb and Kathy McKee (2005), Applied Public Relations: Cases in Stakeholder Management)

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18 thoughts on “Trusting you makes them happy”

All your points are excellent and relevant. One point I would like to add is meeting promise. Meeting promise in time increases trust. Leader can build trust by respecting the sentiments and feelings of colleague, guiding them, showing them and encouraging them to find their dream. Trust is more about others and less about self. Sense what others need and expect less what you want. Expectation decreases trust and selfless effort increases trust. The other factors that lead to employee satisfaction are intangible measures. For example leader interacting with employee in employee workplace, tapping at shoulder for good work, leaving employee one hour before for better performance, publicly appreciating and rewarding for good effort and ethical decision. I think, satisfaction can be increased by focusing on non financial parameters. Providing flexibility and freedom at workplace and engaging them in decision making process motivate them and motivated employees are generally satisfied. So, to increase satisfaction level, leader has to create ownership with each employee. They should love the workplace to work rather than abhor to work. The prevalent practices that need to focus to increase satisfaction is to provide salary in time and sometimes surprisingly before time. Disposal of perks and allowances without reminding even once will surely increase satisfaction level. I strongly believe when there is more gap between policies and practices, dissatisfaction will be more and vice versa. So, reduce gap and increase satisfaction.

So true. Trust can also be easily shaken and lost. Number 4 goes both ways. Explain when things are NOT going so well too and get employees engaged in solutions. They may not be able to solve the whole but when we were facing financial crisis, asking employees how we might each make a contribution to saving expenses helped to save jobs and make them realize that leadership were acting for the good of all. Lots of behind closed door meetings and ‘strategic discussions’ not involving average employees just fuel the rumour mill and dismiss the contribution that informed and trusted employees can bring

I love what you have said. I also agree with Ajay. Here’s my take on it. John. C. Maxwell states that “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
When people know you care, they will start to trust you. However, it has to be genuine. If your interest in people is forced and false, they will sense it a mile off. Caring, like building trust, takes effort. It needs attention every day, every hour.
At work, people trust you and will be more motivated if they have a sense of purpose. This moves away from the material to the emotional. Not many people go there, but for a leader, it is a place that should be embraced. As a leader, what motivates and drives you? Probably a purpose. It’s the same for the followers. Find out what drives them, help them get it, and they will trust you.

Dan, great blog and great discussion. I particularly liked your first point: “Declare what you want rather than what you don’t want.” I feel that often times leaders stuff the provocativeness of their people by placing too many rules on them. I say, give them the guidelines, tell them what you expect, and watch them surprise you.

I’m so with you on this one, Dan. Trust is the foundation of any fruitful human relationship—so much more so between a leader and a follower.

I think one of the most foundational things you can do as a leader is to trust yourself first. That’s the first place you lead by example. Heck, if you can’t trust yourself, how can you expect others to?

We talk about how humans need little successes in life. I think employees and followers need to see those mini successes at work and in their leaders as well. This is somewhat akin to #4 above, but it’s about letting your followers see you succeed, in many ways, and also allow them into that process. That builds confidence and confidence is the desired state, as opposed to uncertainty. Confidence also has a snow ball effect on success and outcome. Leaders can’t be afraid to be out there and even scrutinized by their organizations. It is the lot of leaders to be examples.

Dan: You and the LeadershipFreak community are building a great list. For me there is one simple secret to building trust. When you make a promise – by word or implication – keep it. When you consitently keep your promises, people will trust you. When you don’t, they won’t.

One thing that comes to mind related to this topic is that many people, being human, are more capable of building trust in some areas of their lives than others. For example, if my pilot has flown thousands of hours with no safety concerns, it saddens me but does not diminish my trust if the pilot would withhold information from me about potential high tax rates when (s)he sat on my city commission. I think that is important in employee environments; while it is ideal if a leader is 100% trustworthy and “golden” in all life areas, that’s seldom the case. And for that project, that vision, that mission, what is most critical is that the individual can be trusted as a leader. For me, number 6 is most powerful – take the time to let me know how my work and my attitude matter – once I know that, you will find that you can trust me with even more.

You’ve pegged it. Treating people that work for and with you as you would wish your family treated in the same situation. Be the same person to each person you meet. Simple. Straightforward. Little to memorize, but kindness and integrity.

I am very aware of the fact the best way to have a successful team is to build a trust relationship with its members. Employees of my company trust the leadership not out-of-the-box, but due to situations and events which arose during the years, events and situation in which the leadership proved they are not just there to get a paycheck, but they are actually more than capable to lead the company and make it profitable.

The single most important factor to build Trust is Respecting and Believing in your people. Share with them the common goals for achievement and empower them to contribute their share with new ideas.

Fairness and transperancy in your dealings will always encourage people to perform better and can surpass your expectations.

Sharing Information, taking Commitment with their active involvement and allowing good Freedom will have their multiplying imapct on the final results. These can be the outcome of your trust in your people and believing in their abilities and capabilities.

Try the stated formula and see the wonders! Trust is the backbone of success indeed.

I think it would be nearly impossible to not accpet the argument that trust is the foundation on which relationships are built, and certainly that applies to those who are in leadership positions at any level.

What I always have trouble understanding is that since I suspect that most people feel this way and that those in a leadership role certainly know this to be true, why then does it seem that so many leaders fail to earn the trust of those they lead?

I think that what happens in many cases is that the trust that they held before they were elevated into a leadership role is not retained once they get there, the reasons for which is something that has been and will continue to be written about for years.

I agree. When they can trust us it makes them happy. It also makes the employees happy when we know what we are to do, what’s expected of us and have freedom to move within that. So I think it goes both ways, benefits the boss and the employees.

Thanks for the wonderful post and comments. I echo the importance of keeping promises as a way to build trust. By the way, Tony Simons in his research and his book, The Integrity Dividend, http://integritydividend.com/, has some great examples of this.

The word out of this whole post that stands our for me is INTENTIONAL. Given the complexity of people and their many different rules, barriers, stories, etc around trust – being intentional in our habits as leaders is really important.

Another great post and thanks for the reference to the research you based it on.